The Pilgrim fathers of New England

by W. Carlos Martyn

The Pilgrims had not long to wait. Oldham, with the natural instinct of a bully, picked constant quarrels, refused to mount guard, and pelted Standish with vile epithets. Lyford, a more cautious knave, had no heart for fisticuffs, but he set up another worship on the Sabbath, and openly celebrated sacraments[499] which were to the Pilgrims instinct with vicious tyranny and idolatrous significance; and to escape from which, they had crossed the channel into Holland, and plunged across the Atlantic into the winter wilderness.

The colonists at once acted. Oldham was tamed. “After being clapped up awhile, he came to himself.” Lyford was formally impeached. A court was convened, and the settlers at large were summoned to attend. Bradford himself conducted the prosecution in this primitive trial. He said that, “being greatly oppressed in Britain, the Pilgrims had come to America, here to enjoy liberty of conscience; and for that they had passed through frightful hardships, and planted this settlement on the sterile rocks. The danger and the charge of the beginning were theirs. Lyford had been sent over at the general expense, and both himself and his large family[500] had been maintained from the common store. He had joined their church, and become one of themselves; and for him to plot the ruin of his entertainers was most unjust and perfidious. As for Oldham and his crew, who came at their own charge and for their particular benefit, seeing they were received in courtesy by the plantation, when they came only to seek shelter and protection under its wings, not being able to stand alone, they were like the fable of the hedgehog whom the cony, in a stormy day, from pity welcomed into her burrow; but who, not content to take part with her, in the end, with her sharp pricks forced the poor cony to forsake her own burrow, as these do now attempt to do with us.”[501]

Here Lyford denied that he had been guilty of any wrong. Bradford at once “put in” his intercepted letters as evidence. The unmasked hypocrite was dumb. But Oldham, mad with rage, attempted to rouse an émeute on the spot.[502] No hand was uplifted at his appeal, and Bradford caused the whole parcel of letters to be read; after which, resuming his speech, he reminded Lyford of his humble confession on being received into the church, of his solemn promise not to attempt to perform the functions of a clergyman until he had another call to that sacred office; in open violation of which, he had assumed the clerical garb, in virtue of his ordination, drawn aside a small clique, and by attempting to officiate at the Lord’s table on the Sabbath, broken his solemn pledge and disturbed the public peace.[503]

The proof was so patent, the falsehoods which impregnated the insolent letters were so bold, that the factionists were absolutely dumb. No voice was raised in extenuation of the roguery. Conviction was speedy. Oldham and Lyford were both sentenced to banishment.[504]

Oldham at once left Plymouth, and repaired to Nantasket, where the Pilgrims had a station to accommodate the Indian trade.[505] But Lyford, as weak as he was vicious, burst into tears, and “confessed that he feared he was a reprobate, with sins too heavy for God to pardon;” and he promised amendment with such emphasis, and pleaded so piteously for forgiveness, that the kind and merciful settlers consented to keep him on probation for six months.[506]

But he was an ingrained knave, and amendment was not in him. Not long after this scene, he wrote a second letter to the Merchant-adventurers, in which he justified all his former charges, and elaborated them. Unhappily for him, the messenger to whom he intrusted this precious missive surrendered it into the hands of Bradford, who simply filed it for the present, and let his just wrath accumulate.[507]

In the mean time the ship, with Lyford’s batch of letters aboard, dropped anchor in the Thames. The lies of their masquerading agent were eagerly conned by the London partners. A conclave was held. The inimical adventurers pointed triumphantly to Lyford’s testimony. But, fortunately for the Pilgrims, Winslow, who had returned to London, had become acquainted with certain disreputable and damning facts in Lyford’s home-career, both in England and in Ireland, where he had officiated as pastor, which proved him to be a lecher and a swindler, who soiled the surplice and the cope. With these facts, and followed by grave and unimpeachable witnesses, Winslow hurried into the room where the merchants were assembled, and made his exposé, which “struck Lyford’s friends with sudden dumbness, and made them shame greatly.”[508]

But these reports, together with their disappointment in not harvesting an immediate fortune, impelled two thirds of the original members of the London Company to withdraw from the venture; “and as there had been a faction and siding amongst them for two years, so now there was an utter breach and sequestration.”[509]

Some of the partners, however, remained friendly; and these, assuming the debt of the colony—amounting to some fourteen hundred pounds sterling—fitted out a ship for another voyage, wrote in terms of comfort and cheer, and sent out cattle, tools and clothing, which they sold to the planters, despite their friendly professions, at an exorbitant advance on the market value.[510]